


i’ve been working on my sidestep

by actualbluesargent



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, because we write what we know, liberal arts!students Keith and Lance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-13
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2019-02-14 10:04:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13005387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actualbluesargent/pseuds/actualbluesargent
Summary: based on tweet by @ktjj_ "Dude came into class 20 mins before it's over and says 'sorry I was in jail'".It’s not that Lance had never noticed Keith Kogane before.It’s just that he never spent more than a few seconds thinking about him until he walks into their Tuesday morning tutorial late, with dark rings under his eyes, clothes slightly unkempt and says “Sorry I’m late, I was arrested.”





	i’ve been working on my sidestep

**Author's Note:**

> as I have mentioned in previous fics, I know nothing about the American college/school system as I am European. Be warned.
> 
> this is dedicated to viv, just cause I love her.

**** It’s not that Lance had never noticed Keith Kogane before. He’d seen him in lectures before, commented on ‘that guy with the mullet,’ to Hunk when they met up for lunch. He was in his Old English tutorial group, and honestly, those who  _ Beowulf _ together stay together, at least in a broad sense. He knew his name, knew his face to see.

It’s just that he never spent more than a few seconds thinking about him until he walks into their Tuesday morning tutorial late, with dark rings under his eyes, clothes slightly unkempt and says “Sorry I’m late, I was arrested.”

And then sits down. Without further comment. 

Their tutor, a girl with soft eyes that Lance might be a  _ little _ in love with, Allura, takes it without further question, and continues talking about  _ Citizen Kane _ . 

Lance is, honestly, a little intrigued.

“Like, what kind of statement is that? Who casually gets arrested?” he remarks to Pidge later, leaning over her desk as she works on some complicated equation.

“Lance, you’ve been arrested,” she answers, without even looking up at him.

He rolls his eyes, sighing loudly. “Yeah, but that was because the cops thought I was breaking into a rich white person’s house to steal their things. I didn’t actually  _ commit a crime _ .” 

Pidge laughs at that. “Yeah, you’re right. That was the racial profiling’s fault, not yours.”

“That’s what I’m saying!” he says, gesturing with his hands. “Anyway, that’s not my point. Like, was he arrested last night and just got released? Was he arrested all weekend? What did he do?”

Finally, Pidge looks up at him, unimpressed. “Why do you care?”

If Hunk were here, he’d know, by virtue of being Lance’s childhood friend, that he is both aggressively nosy and competitive. Pidge, who he only knows because she was accidentally assigned to be his roommate because the administration messed up and thought she was a boy, has yet to understand that he likes knowing the answers to things, and when he doesn’t know, he takes it as a personal challenge to find out.

Unfortunately “I just do,” is a pretty lame response, so he doesn’t answer. 

He does start to take more notice of Keith, though. Other than that one incident, he’s never late to class, and always leaves the second the professor finishes. He always tries to sit alone, usually at the edge of a row. He seems to dress exclusively in a red bomber jacket and black skinny jeans with rips at the knees, which Lance would criticise, if he didn’t make it work. He doesn’t seem to have any friends, which makes Lance sad in a way he never really experienced. 

He tells Hunk all this during their weekly Friday pizza-and-video-game night. Hunk is beating him at their game, as always, so Lance doesn’t mind being a little distracted as he relays all his information to him.

“He is, I have decided, an enigma.” he says, as his character dies. 

“You seem to be spending a lot of brain power on this guy, buddy,” Hunk says, not taking his eyes from the screen.

This annoys Lance a little, because Hunk was supposed to be on his side. “It’s just - ” he searches for the words. “I know nothing about him! I have so many questions, and I am no closer to answers than I’ve ever been. I _ need to know _ , Hunk. My curiosity will never be sated if I don’t find out.”

He is being, he knows, a little dramatic. But it is bothering him. The more he observes Keith Kogane, the less he seems like someone who would commit a crime. He just needs a chance to get to know the guy, maybe trick him into revealing his deepest, darkest secrets. How hard could it be?

The opportunity presents itself in the form of a presentation, to be prepared by groups of twos. Allura delivers the information with the gravity of a death sentence, and judging from the reaction of a few of his tutorial-mates, she’s not necessarily taking the wrong approach. Keith, in particular, seated in corner closest to the door, looks like he’s received life-shattering news, a dark cloud overtaking his features.

Lance, being who he is, decides not to let this discourage him. As the tutorial nears the end, Lance packs all his stuff up, so he can catch Keith the second it’s over. As he guessed, Keith is up and out of his seat before Allura finishes saying “Thanks, everyone.”

“Hey, Keith!” he calls after him. Their tutorials are held in a row of houses that used to be dorms, but were decommissioned due to not being “up to code”. Keith’s halfway down the narrow pathway that connects the building to the grassy quad. He turns around, squinting his eyes like he’s not really sure someone actually called his name.

Lance jogs to recover the space between them. “Hey, I’m Lance!”

Keith regards his outstretched hand with a suspicious raised eyebrow, but shakes it. “Uh, hi?” 

“So,” Lance says, shoving his hands in his pockets and bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Do you have a partner yet for the English thing?”

Again, Keith looks at him like he’s on a prank show. “Allura literally just gave us the assignment like, five seconds ago,”

Lance grins. “I know, trick question. How would you feel about being partners?”

Keith blinks at him. “Uh, sure, I guess.”

“Awesome. Give me your number, and I’ll text you about a time to meet up and talk about it? I’ve got swim practice like, now, so I can’t stick around, but like, Thursday should be good. Cool with you?”

Keith takes his phone from his hand and plugs his number in, for what seems like lack of choice. This is really Lance’s only way of human interaction - plow through like nothing’s awkward, and everyone else will just follow his lead. He hands him his phone back, and Lance flashes him a quick smile.

“Brilliant. See you soon, Keith!”

Truthfully, he doesn’t even think it’s that conspicuous until he’s spotting Hunk while he’s doing weights and he calls him out. “Honestly, man, I don’t get how your brain works, sometimes,”

Lance crinkles his nose. “Should I be offended? I feel kind of offended.”

“I mean - you realise this is a little weird, right? You don’t know the guy, and your ulterior motive for teaming up with him for a project is to figure out why he was arrested, like, a month ago.”

“Hunk, my guy,” he says, helping Hunk get the weights back on the rack. “I am so close to having the answers I’ve wanted since he walked into that tutorial late. And then I’m done with him, okay? You’ll never hear the name Keith Kogane from me ever again, after this.”

Hunk gets up, rolling his eyes. “Whatever, man,” he says, and slings his arm around Lance’s shoulder. “Let’s get lunch. I’m feeling burritos.”

On their way to the cafeteria, Lance pulls his phone out of his pocket.

**Me:** Keith!! It’s Lance!! Ur partner!!

Are u free tomorrow? I finish classes at like, 2, and don’t have practice til 7. Anytime then suit u?

A reply comes back a few minutes later.

**Keith:** yeah, i’m free from 4-6

**Me:** Awesome!! U want 2 meet at the Starbucks by the library?

**Keith:** sure

**Me:** See u at 4 tomorrow then!!

* * *

 

Lance is many things. Handsome, obviously. Charming and funny? Absolutely. Bilingual  _ and _ bisexual? You betcha. Ever on time for things? Not quite. He gets to Starbucks at quarter past four, and only feels a little guilty, until he sees Keith glaring at him from the corner table. While he walks over, it crosses his mind that maybe teaming up with a literal felon for a project wasn’t the smartest idea.

He smiles wide at Keith, hoping he can happy away his anger. “Hey, man, sorry I’m late. I have literally no excuse other than I was playing Animal Crossing on my way over and took longer than I thought.”

Keith just raises his eyebrows at him, but at least he doesn’t seem as angry as he did when Lance first walked in. Lance takes the seat across from him, slipping his bag underneath.

“So,” Lance says. “Film studies presentation. I was thinking:  _ Pacific Rim _ .”

“ _ Pacific Rim _ ,” Keith echoes, crossing his arms.

Lance snaps his finger. “Pacific Rim. Think about it. I’m gonna grab a latte.” And with that, he’s up again.

When he gets back, Keith doesn’t look any less confused than he did when Lance left him. “ _ Pacific Rim _ .” he says, like he’s not going to say anything else until Lance elaborates.

Lance puts his coffee down, so he has full use of his hands. “Listen - it might look like it’s just a movie about aliens and giant robots, but it’s more than that. Like, giant robots are  _ awesome _ , but that’s not all this is. There’s really a lot of cool stuff going on, like, drift compatibility and what that means for character relationships, and the association of different colours with different characters - what?”

Keith is looking at him like he’s just seeing him for the first time, and is actually sitting up and paying attention to him, instead of only humouring him. “You’re serious about this.”

Lance cocks his head at him. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“We’ve literally never spoken, and you come up to me, asking to be my partner in a project seconds after it’s announced. Am I being punked? Is that it? Is Ashton Kutcher gonna show up?

Lance can’t help but laugh. “Man, Ashton Kutcher hasn’t been on punk’d in ten years, how old are you?” He runs his hand through his hair. “Listen, I need a partner for this. So do you, and honestly, why not? It’s not like I know anyone else in our group.”

Keith doesn’t answer, but seems to be thinking it over. Lance sits back and waits, takes a sip of his latte. 

“Fine,” he says eventually. “I’ll do it. But any hint you’re not pulling your weight and I’m dropping you, alright?”

“Alright, alright,” Lance says, holding his hands up in surrender. “ _ Pacific Rim _ was my idea, remember?”

“Okay.” Keith says, and Lance beams.

“Okay! So, do you have any opinions? Have you even seen  _ Pacific Rim _ ? Because if you haven’t, that should be our first order of business.”

“Before I answer that,” Keith says. “Please wipe the whipped cream off your nose.”

“What?!” Lance exclaims, wiping at his nose, and sure enough, finds whipped cream. “Nice going, Lance. Am I good now?”

Keith does, at least, look a little amused, which is a change from his blank, unimpressed face he had earlier. “Yeah, you’re good.”

“Awesome. So, have you seen  _ Pacific Rim _ ?”

Keith shakes his head. “I haven’t. I heard about it though. A film set in Asia with an actual Asian character? Groundbreaking.”

Lance doesn’t miss the sarcasm in his voice. “I know, it’s not perfect. Still, you should give it a try. We don’t have time to watch it today, and honestly, I won’t be any good to watch it with, because I can and will recite all of Pentecost’s speech.”

“I have no idea who that is.”

Lance points at him. “Exactly. So, do you think you could watch it at some point in the next few days? Text me when you have, and we can meet up, you can tell me how much you loved it, and we can get started.”

“You don’t know that I’ll love it,” Keith says, sceptical, to which Lance scoffs.

“Please.” he says, and gets up. “I think we’re pretty much done here for the day, so your homework is to watch the greatest robots-and-or-aliens film of all time, while  _ I _ gather actual academic knowledge on it.”

Keith furrows his brow. “I doubt it’s the  _ greatest _ robots-and-or-aliens film of all time, but I’ll watch it, only because I don’t have any other ideas.”

“‘ _ Today, at the edge of our hope, _ ’” Lance says, grabbing his latte and heading for the door.

“Again, no idea!” Keith calls after him, and Lance doesn’t think he imagines the laughter in his voice.

He’s hanging out with Pidge a few days later, watching her play Super Mario Galaxy on an old Wii when a text comes in from Keith.

**Keith:** so i don’t know about greatest robots-and-aliens movie ever, but it wasn’t bad

**Me:** !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Did u cry

Be honest Keith

 

**Keith:** no

nearly

 

**Me:** So what did u think

Actually no, don’t tell me

Let’s meet up tomorrow & u can tell me every thought u had

 

“Who’s that to?” Pidge asks when she spots him texting.

“Keith.” he answers. “I convinced him to watch  _ Pacific Rim _ for our project,”

“So that’s your plan?” Pidge says, eyes on the screen again.

Lance looks over at her, confused. “What do you mean, that’s my plan?”

“You’re going to befriend him and trick him into revealing his criminal past?”

“Well, what else could I do?” he laughs.

“Honestly, I was half-expecting you to ask him about it the second you had a private moment to talk to him.”

“Pidge, please, I have some tact.” he says, affecting offense, putting his fingers splayed out against his heart.

Pidge just cuts a glance at him. “Not from where I’m sitting.”

* * *

 

“So,” Lance says, sliding into the seat across from Keith in the crowded bottom floor of the library. “Did you love it? You realise the only right answers are yes and hell yes.”

Keith smiles, small and private, like he didn’t intend for Lance to see it. “It was really good, yeah.”

Lance punches the air in a show of triumph. “Awesome. So, before we get down to business, I gotta know. Who was your favourite character? What was the best part? Did you or did you not cry at ‘ _ that’s my son you’ve got there _ ’?”

Keith just looks at him, bemused. “In what order, exactly, do you want me to answer those questions?”

“All at once, obviously.” Lance grins. “Jeez, Keith.”

They talk about the movie for a while, which consists of a lot of “And then the bit with the - ” “I  _ know, _ and when - ” “Oh my god,  _ yes _ .”

They do move into talking actual logistics for the project, and Lance is delighted to find out the Keith actually thought about what Lance had said, and had some notes and points prepared. 

They’ve been going through their plan for the assignment for a while when Lance leans his forearms on the table and looks at Keith. “So, if it’s not the greatest robots-and-aliens movie, what is?

Keith looks up, lost. “Sorry?

“I mean, you said you didn’t know about  _ greatest _ .” Lance says, fanning his hands out wide. “So, in your opinion, what’s the greatest robots-and-alien movie?”

“I don’t know,” Keith runs his hand through his hair. “I’ve seen a lot of alien movies.”

“What constitutes a lot? Like, five? Ten? Are they the only movies you’ll watch? Do you sit up at night watching those documentaries where they interview these farmers who are convinced aliens took their cows’ eyeballs?

Keith scrunches his nose at him. “That’s - weirdly specific?”

Lance shakes head. “I’ve seen some shit, man. You didn’t answer my question!”

“What was your question, exactly?”

“Well, first it was ‘what’s the greatest robots-and-aliens movie’, but now I want to know how many alien movies you’ve seen. There is no wrong answer.”

Keith scratches behind his ear. “Uh, you were kind of close with the documentaries thing?”

“Okay, how close is close?”

“Like, you know those like - it’s like Buzzfeed Unsolved before Buzzfeed Unsolved. Like, aliens and stuff, but also like, the case of Bigfoot, or Mothman or whatever.”

“Mothman.” Lance says, unsure if he heard him right or not. 

Keith dropped his gaze. “Stuff like that.”

“So like, conspiracy theories?”

“Yeah, I guess. No robots involved, though.”

Lance laughs, and Keith looks back up, and smiles too. 

It’s not until later that Lance realises he hadn’t even thought to bring up the arrested thing.

They meet up a few more times that week, to coordinate workloads. Keith is the kind of guy that gets very quiet when he’s working, while Lance needs to take frequent walks and talk to himself, so they don’t actually work on the project a lot together, but enough so they know they’re on the same page. Lance’s opinion of Keith has gone from ‘kind of scary and probably a felon’ to ‘cool, if somewhat dorky guy, who might be a felon’. The kind of guy he wouldn’t mind hanging out with more often.

And then he runs into him at Matt Holt’s holiday party. The Holts, Lance knows, are historically not really into holidays, and when Lance asked Pidge what she wanted him to get her for Christmas, she looked him dead in the eyes and said “A will to live.” What the Holts  _ are _ into, however, is getting blackout drunk, and they’re the best at it.

It’s not like, if you asked Lance if he’d ever expect to run into Keith at a party, he’d say no, but it’s more like the question never crossed his mind. Keith wasn’t the kind of guy to be seen at parties, he was a cryptid, existing only in an academic capacity.

So Lance really isn’t ready for him in a social setting. He’s beating Hunk at beer pong when there’s an eruption of noise from the corner behind him. Pidge’s older brother has started cheering, and Lance sees him out of the corner of his eye as he makes his way to the door, where a tall, broad guy Lance doesn’t recognise is standing.

“Shiro! You made it!” Matt is shouting, tackling the taller man. Lance is watching the scene play out with distant amusement, until he spots a smaller figure step out behind the guy Matt’s hugging. Keith looks vaguely uncomfortable watching his companion being smothered, but is still smiling faintly.

“Holy shit,” Lance mutters. “Pidge, swap in for me.”

He starts to make his way to Keith without really having a plan, and when Keith spots him, he waves frantically.

“Mullet man!” he exclaims when Keith is within hearing distance. “Get it, it’s like Mothman, but with a way more tragic haircut.”

Keith smiles. “Hey, Lance.”

“What are you doing here? How do you know Matt?” he asks.

“I don’t actually. My, uh, brother, Shiro,” he gestures at the tall guy now talking to Matt behind them. “They were roommates freshman year, and he dragged me along tonight.”

“Well, it’s good you’re here.” he claps him on the shoulder. “You any good at beer pong?”

Keith shakes his head, a smile tugging at his lips. “Not in the slightest.”

“Cool, I needed someone to balance out my team anyway. Come meet Hunk and Pidge,” he says, and he steers Keith in the direction of the beer pong table.

“Guys, this is Keith, he’s joining my team. Be nice.”

And Keith is, as expected, pretty bad. He’s  _ fun _ , though, trash-talking Lance when he messes up, and whooping and yelling when they get a ball in. He’s different to every encounter Lance has ever had with him, and he begins to shape into a person Lance definitely wants to keep hanging out with. 

He’s also kind of cute, but Lance ignores the part of him that notices that.

* * *

 

It’s Pidge who calls him out for it, a few days later, and it’s so inconspicuous that he doesn’t even think to be wary of her.

“How’s your mission-slash-project going?” she asks, not looking up from her homework.

Lance nods, sitting back in his chair. “Pretty well, actually. Once you get past Keith’s like, hyper-fixation with Mothman, he’s not bad to work with.”

“Are you any closer to figuring out the arrested thing?” 

He bites his lip. “Well, no. We’re kind of friends now, and the longer it goes on, the weirder I’d feel bringing it up.”

“So bring it up now, before it’s too late.”

He shifts in his seat. “I don’t know, it’s kind of a dick move now, isn’t it?”

Instead of responding, Pidge looks up at him, mouth open. “Oh my god, you like Keith.”

“I do  _ not _ !” he protests.

Pidge looks at him with no pity in her eyes. “Yes you do. This is awful. You’re the worst when you have a crush.”

He pauses, affronted “Since when?”

“Since the beginning of the semester when Allura was assigned as your tutor, and I had to deal with you waxing poetic about her, like, eyes, for two months, until you found out she was dating that soccer player, when it changed to crying about her being taken for three weeks.”

Lance waves his hand at her. “This isn’t like that, trust me.”

Truthfully, Lance doesn’t want to think about Keith like that. Because - he’s not bad looking, and he’s actually pretty funny, and they get on great. But if Lance gets a crush on him, then it becomes a  _ thing _ , and he’s not sure he’s ready for that, for every encounter to have a certain weight to it. So he’s just - not going to think about it.

* * *

 

“So, we’re nearly done, then.” Keith says, with a soft, proud smile.

They’re in the library, seated side by side, Keith watching over Lance’s shoulder as he puts the final touches on the assignments.

“Yeah,” Lance says, leaning back in his chair, stretching his arms over his head. “I need to run for practice, but we can meet up an hour before the tutorial tomorrow to go over all the final details, if you want?”

Keith nods, slightly pursing his lips, and Lance  _ doesn’t _ think about kissing them. No sir. “Will we get going, then?”

They get to the doors of the library and are met with rain falling like it hadn’t rained in months. 

“Shit,” Lance says. “It was sunny when I left earlier,”

Keith shakes his head, and then looks at him, with a look in his eye Lance doesn’t recognise. Then, he grabs Lance’s arm and starts sprinting in the direction of the dorms.

“ _ Keith! _ ” he shrieks as they run through the rain, but Keith doesn’t slow.

They nearly crash against the walls of the dorm building when they reach it, and Lance bats Keith’s arm. “Not cool, man! Warn a guy!”

Keith just laughs, teeth still chattering from the cold of the rain. His black hair is plastered against his forehead, rain dripping from his jaw. The rain causes his black t-shirt to cling to him, outlining muscles Lance did  _ not _ need to know existed, thank you. He smiles at Lance, nothing like the private smiles he would send him while they worked on the project, but wide and carefree and Lance feels his stomach flip. 

“I’m gonna head inside. I’ll see you tomorrow, Lance,” he says,  _ still smiling, _ and pushes the front door to the left wing of the dorms open. Lance can’t move for a minute, because the image of Keith, soaking wet in a black shirt is frozen in his mind.

“He wasn’t supposed to be  _ hot _ , Hunk! This ruins my whole plan!” he complains, once Hunk asks how the project was coming along. 

“Did you not know he was hot before?”

“No! Yes! I don’t know. I somehow got over the mullet, and now he’s suddenly the most attractive guy on the planet. How do I stop this?”

“Remind me again why you can’t just ask the guy out?” Hunk asks as they step into Pidge’s room.

“Because!” Lance says, draping himself on Pidge’s bed. “I approached him with an ulterior motive! I can’t just ask him out with that in our history! It’d be like  _ She’s All That _ !”

Hunk narrows his eyes at him. “I’m not really sure why this is like  _ She’s All That _ .”

“That doesn’t matter!” Pidge says. “What matters is I cannot, physically, listen to you pine over him anymore. So you  _ have _ to ask him out, or else I will render you mute. Do not test me.”

She says the final sentence while jabbing a pencil threateningly in his position, and he just gulps.

He meets up with Keith the following day before their tutorial, as promised. Keith, annoyingly, is acting like always, like Lance  _ isn’t _ a total bundle of nerves. He talks about the assignment, reads through what they have so far, and it’s as much Lance can do to answer “Yeah, that’s good,” when he asks him his opinion.

They’re walking from the library in silence, and Lance can just feel his words at the tip of his tongue, waiting for him to just open his mouth.

“Okay, so, I have a confession.” Lance says, when he can’t stand it anymore. Keith freezes, and looks at him like he’s a ticking bomb.

“Okay?” he replies, wary.

“The only reason I asked you to work on this project with me was because - ” he pauses, and nearly loses his nerve. He focuses at a point in the distance. “I wanted to know why you were arrested that one time but I didn’t just wanna randomly ask and now we’re sort of friends and I’m a dick, also you’re kinda hot and I wanna hit on you but that makes me feel like even  _ more _ of a dick - ”

“Lance,” Keith interrupts, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Breathe.”

Lance nods, and then feels his cheeks start to burn. “Oh, god did I just say that? I totally did. I - ”

“Lance,” Keith says again. “Do you want to try that again?’

Lance scrunches up his face. “Not really.”

Keith lets out a soft laugh. “Will you, anyway?”

“Do you remember a month or so ago, when you were late for our tutorial, and you said you were arrested?”

Keith doesn’t say anything, only nods, expression unreadable. 

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m kind of nosy, and I really wanted to find out why. So I thought - ”

“That you’d be my partner for the Film Studies assignment, and ask me then?” Keith finishes, and Lance wishes he could read his mind. He nods, feeling his cheeks burn with a renewed passion.

Keith’s quiet for a moment. “And the part about wanting to hit on me?”

Lance smiles at little at his own expense. “Yeah, I didn’t actually see that coming, but the more time we spend together, the more I like you, weirdly enough.”

“So what would be your dream ending to this scenario?” he says, cocking his head to the side.

That throws Lance a little. “My dream ending?”

“Yeah.”

“Uh, well, ideally,” Lance says, taking a deep breath to steady his nerves. “You tell me why you were arrested, and then you tell me you like me too, and then I ask you out. And you say yes.”

“But me telling you why I was arrested it number one on that list?” Keith asks, a glint of playfulness in his eyes, and Lance feels his stomach swoop.

“Yeah, I can’t date you if I can’t find out,” he says, finally feeling his trademark confidence trickling back. 

Keith grins, quick and charming. “Breaking and entering.”

Lance feels like his eyes go out on stalks. “Breaking and entering? Into where?!”

“The National Museum,” he says, wincing. 

“The  _ National Museum?! _ ” Lance repeats, shellshocked.

Keith shrugs. “There’s a part of the history section that’s cordoned off from public access, and I thought - ”

“Oh my god,” Lance interrupts. “You were looking for records of Mothman.”

Keith drops his head back in dismay. “Not  _ Mothman -  _ ”

“But one of your conspiracy cryptids, right? God, why do I have a crush on you?” he laughs, and then realises what he’s said, and has to restrain himself from smacking his forehead, cartoon-style.

Keith’s smile, though, is playful. “Beats me.”

Lance clears his throat. “So, about the second part…” he trails off, butterflies in his stomach. 

Keith pauses, and then goes onto the balls of his feet and presses his lips against Lance’s. It’s warm and fast, over before Lance even registers it’s happening.

“Let’s kill this presentation first,” he says, intertwining his fingers with Lance’s. “And then we can talk about it.”

If Lance wasn’t so sure about his answer, he wouldn’t follow him into the tutorial. But as it is, he grins, and lets the shorter boy lead him into the classroom.

**Author's Note:**

> if you haven't seen pacific rim, please, love yourself.
> 
> also, you can come find me on Tumblr @neiljostensmh !


End file.
